


Fracture

by sussexbound (SamanthaLenore)



Series: The Homecoming [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 07:51:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1890894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamanthaLenore/pseuds/sussexbound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And then John breaks.</p><p>It is 2:30 am on a Sunday.   Four days, fourteen hours, thirty minutes since the moment that he set foot back in 221b Baker Street.</p><p>John has had nightmares every night since he returned.  He is still sleeping in Sherlock’s room and so Sherlock hears everything from his usual perch in the kitchen—every whimper, every sob and shout, every sickening jolt into wakefulness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fracture

**Author's Note:**

> This is a part of "The Homecoming" series, and really makes more sense if you read the other piece in the series ("Enough") first.
> 
> I also want to take a moment to extend a huge thanks to everyone who read, left kudos, or commented on "Enough". I so appreciate your support and encouragement. I do apologize for not replying to each comment individually. My energy levels can run fairly low, and my real life job and other social obligations seem to take up all I have. But, I am so grateful to you all, and to any new readers as well.

And then John breaks.

It is 2:30 am on a Sunday.   Four days, fourteen hours, thirty minutes since the moment that he set foot back in 221b Baker Street.

John has had nightmares every night since he returned.  He is still sleeping in Sherlock’s room and so Sherlock hears everything from his usual perch in the kitchen—every whimper, every sob and shout, every sickening jolt into wakefulness.

The first night he picked up his violin and played the pieces which had proven to calm John in the past.  He played for over an hour, and when he finally set the instrument back into its case again he was met with blessed silence.

The next two nights he waited, breath held, burning in his chest.  He waited to hear the creak of the bedroom door, see a light flick on in the bath, anything.  But the sheets rustled a little and then silence.

The fourth night he thought he heard John cry out Mary’s name when he woke.  It had been so long since either of them had dared voice that name that it had made his blood turn to ice and his eyes smart.  So much he wants to forget.  _His fault—all of it_. 

This time is different.  Sherlock hears the nightmare start its downward spiral, drowning John swiftly.  He wakes with a shout.  A word Sherlock can’t quite make out. 

But it is wrong.  Somehow wrong.  He does not hear the rustle of sheets.  Only silence for a stretch of nearly 80 seconds.  It is broken by a loud gasp and then the crash of the door between the bedroom and the bath, followed by the sound of violent retching. 

Sherlock’s brain whites out in a rush of anxiety. 

This has not happened before.  There is no script for it, and John needs…  What does he need?  He needs something.  He needs something that is not ‘ _alone_ ’, but Sherlock’s mind is blank with the overwhelming desire to help, to soothe, and the equally profound sense of helplessness.

And then he is standing by the door to the bath, his hand and forehead pressed against it—listening. 

Not right.

John’s breathing is not right. 

The fluorescent lights of the bath buzz like angry wasps, and the air, sour with the smell of sweat, adrenaline, and vomit, almost overwhelms him as he pushes open the door.  John is leaning back against the wall by the toilet, face wax-white, hands trembling, lips dry and grey-tinged, eyes awash with panic. 

He looks desperately relieved for a moment, then angry, then scared.  And that is what twists deep in Sherlock’s gut and makes him feel ill himself—that fear in John’s eyes.  _Too much this time_.  He has always mastered these attacks.  He has always somehow managed control.  But this battle has raged on for years, and for the first time, tonight, he looks like he might be losing. 

Sherlock sits, back up against the tub, knees tucked up against his chest.  He doesn’t touch.  Should he?  It doesn’t help him when he is this far gone, but John is not him. 

“What do you need?”

John swallows, tries to catch his breath, fails.  There are tears in his eyes.  It’s not emotion. It’s panic.  It’s physiological response to the adrenaline flooding his veins and the desperate struggle to get enough oxygen into his lungs.

“Show me.”

John clenches his jaw, looks away, looks down at the tile floor and attempts to master himself again.

“Do you want me to leave?”

John’s head snaps up and the look in his eyes holds all the answer Sherlock needs.

“Fine.  Alright.  I’m staying.  I’ll stay.”

And John seems to relax a little. He’s trembling, though.  He’s clammy with sweat.

Sherlock slides over to sit beside him.  Not touching, but in his personal space.  He remembers how this closeness seemed to shore John up a few days prior on the way home from Angelo’s, how it kept him steady.  “Breathe, John: in through your nose, out through your mouth.  Concentrate.”

John tries for him.

Sherlock stares at John’s hands trembling, clenching and unclenching in the flannel of his pajama bottoms.  He should look him in the eye.  John might want that.  He turns and looks, but John looks away immediately.  _Embarrassment_. 

Sherlock stares down at the celadon tiles beneath them.

“Better,” he encourages as John’s breathing begins to even out.

They sit in silence.

The lights buzz away overhead.  Water drips in the sink.  John’s breathing grows more and more even.

John reaches up and brushes a hand across his face; it rasps against stubble.  His breath hitches, but then resumes in a healthier cadence.  His body shifts ever so slightly so that his shoulder is pressing against Sherlock’s.

“Has that been happening with more frequency?”  Sherlock’s voice sounds unnaturally loud in the silence.

John’s breath catches again.  He lets out a long sigh.  “It’s fine.”

“Is it?”

“John…”

“I said, it’s fine!”  He snaps.

“Alright.”

The soft patter of rain outside turns to a steady thrum.  A police siren wails several blocks over, muffled by fog and distance.  John sniffles.  He rubs at his eyes again.  His hands stay there, palms pressed against his eyelids.  He lets out a small burst of breath, sucks another in immediately.

Sherlock’s eyes snap to John’s face.  He’s crying.  Crying.  John doesn’t cry.  John never cries.

Sherlock averts his eyes again.  He sits in silence.  He lets John lean into him until he feels almost as though he is bearing the full brunt of his weight.  The urge to touch is strong, but he doesn’t.  He has no idea how John might react, and now is not the time to experiment.

John is here.  John has still not asked him to leave.  John is loosing all the pent up grief, and loss, and anger of the last few years and not trying to rein himself in, something Sherlock has never witnessed before.  So Sherlock sits.  Sherlock waits.

John cries for a long time.  When he forgets to breathe, Sherlock gently reminds him.

His breathing evens again, his body relaxes.  He stays pressed up against Sherlock’s side.  The coldness of the initial adrenaline rush has been replaced by a burning heat that is coming off of him in waves. 

“You should have taken me with you.”  John’s voice is small, weary when he finally speaks.  It echoes slightly, hollow in the cold, tiled room.

“I know.”

“Why did you do it, Sherlock?  You’ve never really explained.”

John knows why.  It was to save his life, Mrs. Hudson’s life, Lestrade’s life.  He knows that.  But that’s not what he’s asking.  Not really…

“I didn’t know, John.  If I’d known—if I’d known, I would have found another way.”

John lets out a clipped laugh and Sherlock turns to look at him.  His face is red, blotchy, his eyes horribly bloodshot.  John finally glances over at him.  “You didn’t know?”  His voice is thick with bitter incredulity.

“No.”

“You didn’t know?”

“No, John.  I didn’t.”

“You didn’t think, for one instant, that seeing you plunge to your death, seeing your body broken, and…”  His voice catches and he swallows dryly, looking away again with a small shake of his head.  “You didn’t, for one second, think that that might hurt me?”

It sounds ludicrous, and ignorant, and the very height of insensitivity when John frames it in such a way.  Sherlock is ashamed of himself—deeply, profoundly.  But, he doesn’t know how to apologize anymore.  He doesn’t know how to make it right.  He’s started to wonder if it is something that can ever be made right.  Perhaps it is a fracture running between them that will always be there, a scar on the bones of their relationship. 

“I’m sorry,” he says again because he doesn’t know what John wants from him, what more he can do or say.

“You don’t have to keep apologizing.”

Sherlock swallows hard, and looks over, hold’s John’s gaze.  “Then what?”

John blinks. He searches Sherlock’s eyes in a way he’s not done before: intent, serious. 

“If I had been the one to jump from the roof of Bart’s that day.  If I had made you watch me fall, made you see me broken and bloody on the pavement.  If I’d gone away and left you for two years, let you think that I was—that I was dead…  What would you have done, Sherlock?  How would you have felt?”

“Nothing.”  Sherlock blurts it out without thinking because it is unthinkable.  His stomach ties in knots his chest aches at the very thought of it, and he has thought of it, so many times since he came back.  He has dwelt on it almost as punishment, dwelt on it until he felt like he couldn’t breathe.  He dwelt on it while he fell in love with Mary for John’s sake.  He dwelt on it while he planned John’s wedding.  He dwelt on it when he watched John walk away.  He dwelt on it and let it plunge him under, let it flay him open and bleed him out while substance flooded his veins, and bleak emptiness swallowed him whole. 

“Nothing?”  John barks out a bitter laugh, and smiles that tight, crooked, angry smile of his.  “Nothing.  Yeah.  Right.  Of course.  Nothing.”  He shakes his head and shifts, starts to get to his feet.

Sherlock reaches out in desperation and grabs on to his T-shirt.  “No.  Not—not like that.  Not _nothing_ like that.  Nothing because there would _be_ nothing.  Nothing because one can’t _feel_ if they are _dead_ inside, John.  Nothing because you’re—you’re…”  He’s doing this so very wrong.  Everything.  He’s failing, failing when it is most important.

But the anger seems to have faded from John’s features.  He looks slightly confused, but he’s sitting back down.  He’s not leaving, and that is something.

“There is _nothing_ when you aren’t here.” Sherlock finishes.  It’s weak.  It doesn’t make sense.  He’s desperate to make things clear but language is failing him.

John sniffs and leans back against the wall.  “Good,” he finally says after what feels like endless minutes of silence.  He nods.  “Good.”

The rain outside has slowed to a trickle again.  A door shuts downstairs.  Mrs. Hudson is awake.  Sherlock hopes that they didn’t wake her.

The tile floor under his palm is cool, but John’s fingers are hot as they inch over his.  It is a simple touch—two of John’s finger’s hooked over two of his.  They burn trails of light over his skin, little prickles of sensation that burst into something almost overwhelming.  He doesn’t dare move. He leans his head back against the wall behind him and lets his eyes slide shut.  His flesh burns where John touches him, but the tension that has been haunting him since John awoke dissipates with the sensation. 

The sound of John’s breathing, so even, so steady now, soothes him too, and he is suddenly exhausted.

“Do you want to sleep?”  John’s voice cuts through the growing fog in his brain and he opens his eyes.

“Hmm?”

“You look tired.  I’ve taken your bed every night since I’ve been back.  Do you want to sleep?  I’m awake now.  I don’t think I can fall back asleep.”

“You need to sleep.”

“ _You_ need to sleep.  I’m not stupid, you know.  I know that you’ve hardly slept a wink since I moved back in.”

“I’m fine.”

John falls into silence again.  He doesn’t move.  His fingers stay looped with Sherlock’s.  And Sherlock loses track of time.  He drifts in and out of that strange place between awake and asleep.  His limbs are heavy, weighted.  His head is somehow a jumble, and yet completely empty all at once.  He is utterly done in, but despite all this he feels better than he has in a very long time.

Things are right in this moment, in this place, with John.  Things fall into place in his head.  Things reset in his heart.  Everything realigns into a new kind of good. 

John’s hand slides over, comes to rest atop his, fingers mesh.  Sherlock doesn’t dare open his eyes.  He hears John sigh quietly beside him, feels him lean over, rest against him again, shoulder-to-shoulder, his head tilting to rest against him too.

So they will sleep here.  Together.  Good.  That’s good.  Their spines will start to protest in an hour or two, but for now it’s perfect…

 

* * *

 

When Sherlock finally returns to awareness he is cold, and his tailbone aches.  There is still warmth pressed up against one side, though.  John is still there. 

Sherlock let’s his eyes slide open.  John is awake.  He is looking at him.  He doesn’t look away.  “You okay?”

Sherlock nods.

“Yeah, well my arse is killing me,” John offers with a smile.  “Breakfast?”

The smell of bacon, and eggs, and beans is drifting up from downstairs.  “I think Mrs. Hudson’s already making it.”

“Tea, then?”

“Yes please.”

John’s fingers disentangle from his.  He gets to his feet, and stretches with a slight groan.  He stops and looks down at Sherlock.  There is a softness about him, a softness and openness that Sherlock hasn’t seen in a very long time.  A softness he has missed.

“Earlier…”

Sherlock blinks up at him.

“Earlier was…  Yeah, umm—thanks.  Thanks for that.”

Sherlock nods.

John holds out his hand, and Sherlock lets him help him to his feet.

John lets go, but he doesn’t leave.  He just stands there, looking at him. “Last week, you uh—you asked me—you told me I could ask you again when I was sober.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m asking you now.”  John’s tongue darts out to moisten his lips.  John’s pupils are blown wide and his breath quickens just a little.  He looks afraid—and something else...

“I want _this_.” There is no hesitation.  Sherlock has known this for months now—for years, really. 

John’s lips part a little and then press closed again.  He swallows.  “This?”

“Yes.  This.  Us.  Here…  Together.”

John nods after a moment of quiet consideration.  “Me too.”

And Sherlock smiles—small, almost shy. 

Why should he be shy with John?  It is the truth.  It is what he wants.  All he wants.  And he has known that John wants it too.  John would not have come home to him if he had not wanted it.  But there is a kind of reality to it now it’s been said out loud, and suddenly he feels overwhelming joy, and hope so strong it rises up and gathers at the inner corners of his eyes, threatens to spill over.

John’s brows knit.  “You okay?” gently.

Sherlock only nods because there is nothing else to do.  He is okay; more than okay. 

John smiles back.  “Okay.  Good.  I’m going to make the tea now, yeah?  You’ll want it hot with your breakfast and I think Mrs. Hudson’s probably almost finished with that fry up.”

Sherlock nods, watches John smile again, turn, walk out to the kitchen.  He listens to the water run, the sound of John filling the kettle, the clink of their mugs as he takes them down from the cupboard, the tap of the spoon against the tea tin, the beep of the kettle as it finishes boiling, and the slosh as John hots the pot and then pours the water in.

He walks out to the kitchen, settles himself into his usual chair at the table, removes the slide in the microscope (ruined now due to neglect) and replaces it with another.  He watches John as he moves to the living room beyond, settles into his chair and takes up the day-old newspaper beside him.

Mrs. Hudson’s footfall sounds on the stairs.  The newspaper flutters softly as John turns the page.  The muffled sounds of early morning traffic float up from the street.  Sherlock sighs deep and full, and adjusts the fine focus on the microscope in front of him. 

Things will be alright.


End file.
